Obama's loss weakens U.S. abroad

President Barack Obama’s political fortunes suffered a dramatic blow on Nov. 2. Since then, whether in domestic policy or the international arena, nations, as well as U.S. politicians, have raised their price for cooperating with him.

Despite a number of key successes – on health care policy, global nuclear WMD summitry and agreements and making the G20 a relatively strong global economic coordinating body – the world still doubts the ability of the United States and its relatively untested president to deliver on their objectives and promises. The Republican red tide that swept in has made the doubt about the Obama White House even greater.

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This doubt is eroding global stability and undermining the trust that allies have in U.S. leadership. It is increasing the appetite of U.S. foes — including North Korea and Iran — to shake off constraints. It is also raising our allies’ price for cooperation.

Obama’s recent visit to Asia was designed, in part, to push U.S. economic interests, but also to assure Japan and South Korea that Washington would stand with them as they increasingly rubbed against China’s growing global ego. But Obama brought little tangible back to the United States for his efforts.

In fact, incidents in the region since Obama returned home have illustrated that China and its “affiliates” have more ability to control events in the Asia Pacific than Washington and its allies.

China and Japan had only recently ended a high stakes stand-off, in which Japan arrested an aggressive Chinese boat captain who rammed Japan coast guard ships off of the disputed Senkaku Islands. This incident escalated to the highest levels – until Japan blinked and released the detained Chinese captain.

China scored a win – and was testing not just Japan but its chief sponsor, the United States.

Fast forward to North Korea’s attack on a South Korea island that hosts both military personnel and civilians. In this case, a nation strongly dependent on China’s economic and strategic support makes a strategic choice for China – testing both the United States and China’s resolve.

North Korea might be viewed as almost “China’s Israel” — though the comparison is less than complete since this is not a case of two democracies with common interests and there is no influential contingent of North Korean-Chinese in China, in the way that Israel is able to affect the U.S. political machinery. The foreign policy blogger and University of Michigan political scientist Daniel Drezner has also proposed this analogy.

Israel, in ways similar to North Korea’s national profile, depends on Washington’s guarantee of its key economic and strategic circumstances. But unlike North Korea, Israel is no longer the supplicant, and realizes that Washington has decided it must acquiesce to Israel’s recalcitrance on Middle East peace, as well as the evolution of an increasing structural division of Palestinians from Israelis within its borders.

Israel is a democracy, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in no way similar to the dictators Kim Jong Il, but there is a similarly in the confidence both these leaders have that their chief international patrons will support them almost unconditionally. One looking at the situation from outer space would presume that Washington had the power and Israel was followed along. But, in fact, Israel seems to be calling its own shots and Washington is too paralyzed to use the power levers to control Israel’s political leadership.

The same appears increasingly true of North Korea’s relationship to China. North Korea knows that it can be a massive economic and geostrategic headache – worse if it collapses. So it seems to be smartly exploiting this disaster scenario to extort resources not just from China but also from the West.

Beijing seems willing to ignore a great deal of North Korean misbehavior — even attacks like the one recently — to preserve the status quo on the Korean peninsula. Beijing’s latitude in controlling North Korea seems extremely limited — on par with Washington’s frustrating lack of influence on Israel’s behavior.